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I WAS A BLOCKED EPINIONS MEMBERJun 21 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line ...and I still am. So what am I supposed to do now?
Whilst perusing these many pages on the Web of Trust and Epinions in general, it has struck me that very few people seem to have any idea what it means to ‘block’ someone. Since there’s not a lot mentioned about it in the Help section of the site, most members appear to think of the block feature as a mere token, an outlet for one’s irritation at a certain member; click on the ‘Block’ button, and you can forget about them forever. In fact, the block feature serves a purpose: to filter out the small number of consistently unhelpful and, perhaps, offensive members, for the benefit of the browsing non-members. It does this by ‘hiding’ all of the reviews by blocked member, so that only fellow members can see them. Even then, signed-in members have to go through a notice page which informs (warns?) them that this member has been blocked. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure if this ‘warning’ page doesn’t block the review altogether, giving members no option to ‘override their trust settings’. I do know that a product search will show that there is a review on a product, but will then refuse to give even the title or the rating, stating that ‘there are no reviews available’. I only discovered this when I found out that I myself was blocked – by ‘the community’. How did I find out – through an email sent to me by Epinions? With a message left by Epinions on my profile page? Nah, I had to depend on a mate of mine telling me that he could only access my profile after getting through a page telling him, ‘Sorry, but this profile cannot be displayed’. Even then he couldn’t access any of my reviews, because he is not an Epinions member. I am an Epinions member – a member of this ‘community’, which we love to call it – and now I find myself alienated by my fellow members. Why? I emailed Epinions about this. They told me that ‘if you’re blocked your review won’t show…’ The definition of a blocked member is ‘a member who is blocked by other established trusted members’ (and not a medical condition, which I was quite relieved to hear). I concede, I have been a bit of a naughty boy in the past. My essay questioning the point of Epinions Editors was, I suppose, slightly controversial. It certainly split my audience: for that essay I got my only ever ‘Most Helpfuls’, plus my first ever ‘Not Helpfuls’. I also did the Epinions equivalent of eating my soup with my dessert spoon, by naming a couple of other Epinions members. The members in question didn’t seem to mind too much at the time, but I was later told by three crusading raters that it was ‘poor etiquette to mention other members’ names’. I got a ‘Not Helpful’ from each of them for my troubles. None of them mentioned anything about blocking; and indeed, I doubt that any of them have blocked me: since they were happy enough to let me know that they were ‘Not Helpful’-ing me – and told me the reason why – then I don’t believe that they would then go ahead and anonymously block me. And even if they did block me – all three of them – does that constitute being ‘widely blocked by the community’? Now this is getting me paranoid. I’ve started thinking back to all the comments I ever left, wondering if I insulted anyone, if any of them could have been misinterpreted… I can only ever think of one occasion – one member. If his Web of Trust was big enough, could he alone have the power to block me on behalf of the whole ‘community’? No, no, it can’t be him: our quarrels finished tarnishing his comments page many months before I got blocked. Even the Editors… essay was months ago. Aaarrgh! This is driving me crazy! But it doesn’t really matter who blocked me, anyway. The question now is this: what the hell am I supposed to do now?! Is there some way of becoming ‘unblocked’. My reviews were little read as it is, without me being blocked. And what’s the point of posting reviews on a site where no-one can read them?! I am certainly not the only one to have noticed the huge number of rats leaving this sinking ship. I’m now worried that I might have to join them.  |
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